Playlist

Mike called and said he's having phone trouble, which is keeping him from live-blogging and twittering at the moment. He's working on it. At worst, he'll post and twitter a flurry of stuff tonight back at his room, so stay tuned. Meanwhile check out ...

• Dallas area acts hitting Austin City Limits Music Festival

And check here through the weekend for his ACL-act reviews.

The look and the moves are similar, so I can see where folks are getting the assumption, but it's hard to tell for sure (peep the clip bigger here). And then check the Ellen show clip where he busts a move shortly after her intro. Be honest: do you think it's our Democratic nominee?

Austin City Limits is this Friday through Sunday, and Big Mike will be down there covering it. In addition to some cool features and live-blogging, he's trying something new. Throughout the day, each day, he'll be Twittering his observations, information and thoughts on the mass of humanity and music going on at the state capital's Zilker Park (kind of like how pop culture critic Tom Maurstad did during the Toronto Film Festival recently). The Twitter action will take place here.

Don't have a Twitter account yet? Sign up and add guidelivemusic to your "follow" list.

Also online
Story: ACL latest to offer VIP comforts

Ed McMahon, the sweepstakes guy and Johnny Carson's old Tonight Show sidekick, is making the most of his recent financial troubles and doing viral rap videos for FreeCreditReport.com. The videos, which will appear online next month, will feature him rapping lyrics that warn others to learn from his money mistakes and to stay on top of their financial matters. After McMahon discussed his very public money troubles on Larry King, a FreeCreditReport marketing VP approached him about doing the videos. Check out a sample of the lyrics:

We ran this story on former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker getting hip-hop cred with his YouTube videos of rocked-up rap hits. I hadn't seen the "Crank That" video til just now, and it smokes.

Esteemed intern Mallary Tenore will be live-blogging from the convention Friday through Sunday, next door to us at Dallas Convention Center and the Hyatt Regency. I'm betting that she'll have tons to observe, with the Tejano Mega Dance, dance classes, the expo, Tejano Live! Unplugged, mingling with the artists, performances and more on the sked. Also, hazy-headed funnyman Cheech Marin is the master of ceremonies, too.

(Photo: Expresion E Imagen)

Check out video of Elvis impersonators crooning and shakin' those hips for a $1,000 prize during a bi-annual contest at one of my favorite restaurants, El Ranchito. When not taken over by white sequined jumpsuits and ample sideburns, the old Tex-Mex joint features strolling mariachi, a boisterous atmosphere and some guuud food.

During Merle Haggard's recent concert at 420-seat Music City Texas Theater in Linden, Texas, a young man with a video camera kept approaching the stage and shooting the show. But he had permission. Drew Wilson is filming the documentary Bob Wills Ain't Dead, whose interviews include Mr. Haggard, whose own career was greatly influenced by Mr. Wills. Merle agreed to be a part of the film but has also allowed Mr. Wilson's young daughter Savannah to sing on stage with him and the Strangers. It turns out Savannah knows Bob Wills' classic tune "Faded Love." "We are all changed from the experience of traveling the road with this legend," Mr. Wilson writes of Mr. Haggard in a recent e-mail. Click the video link below to view a portion of what Mr. Wilson has filmed:

Photo: Merle Haggard performing at Music City Texas Theater in Linden, Texas

Ozzfest is is only two days from now and in light of my recent experience I wonder how you guys do it.

I was at the House of Blues which is a pretty calm environment and the pit wasn't even warmed up yet (I just happen to be an unfortunate height).

What is your craziest concert moment, tragedy or mishap?

(Ozzy photo: AFP)

What happened to the radio? I find myself shamelessly singing along to songs that would typically make me blush if anyone heard.

First, Katy Perry released her debut single "I Kissed A Girl" and I am not the only person who found the song way too catchy. I caught my mom singing it.

Time for a new preset.

It's a virtual explosion of photos on Playlist today, apparently ... check out these shots from rock fest Lollapalooza over the weekend in Chicago's Grant Park. Thor was there and wrote a review, along with a story comparing it with Austin City Limits (which takes place Sept. 26-28).

Are you planning on attending ACL this year?

(AP photo: Sharon and the Dap Kings at Lolla '08)

Got a charming, charming story and photos for you from the far East Texas town of Linden, just north of Jefferson.

Staff writer Michael "Renaissance reporter" Granberry covers the folk and Texas coffeehouse music scene (in addition to visual arts, the Jenna Bush wedding and everything else in between). Over the weekend, he and DMN photographer Guy Reynolds caught the Merle Haggard concert at the tiny Music City Texas Theater.

Who was the fan who likely traveled the farthest to see Merle in this lil' hamlet? Linden native Don Henley. Yes, that Don Henley. Best quote from a town resident about scoring Merle Haggard? "t's like Stonehenge has come to Linden."

Great story, great photos. Check them out.

(Photo by Guy Reynolds / DMN)

Just an FYI for you commenters out there ... the blog has now gone to automatic comment approval. This means that we'll no longer say "tell us what you think!" only to get around to approving what you think six hours or two days later. Hopefully this will grease the wheels of discussion further and make the blog mo' funnuh. We still have an f-bomb filter, however. Not that we have to worry about that, since you're a classy crowd and all. But you might want to keep that in mind when Mario expresses his usual love for Carrie Underwood, heh heh.

Thor's written a story about how some people forget that two-thirds of the Houston-formed band ZZ Top are actually from the Dallas area, born and raised (find the story online here late Sunday night/early Monday, or in the Sunday paper). Dusty Hill and Frank Beard are pretty proud of their Dallas roots and have played at all sorts of venues in the area — the big ones, the legendary ones that aren't around anymore, the sketchy underground ones.

Have you ever seen the band play in the area? Tell us where, when and how it went. If you haven't, what's their best album or song?

(Photo: The band's recently-released DVD, Live from Texas, recorded in concert last year at Nokia Theater/Superpages.com Center)

The first line of Stephen's story explains why I just might check out a little flick called The Wackness coming out tomorrow. The hip-hop soundtrack list alone at the bottom of the story is like, "It was all a dream! I used to read Word Up magazine!"

(Courtesy photo: Notorious B.I.G.)

On the heels of Mario's white soul-sister story, Bridgette was wondering where a radio-listener is supposed to catch any of the blue-eyed sound he wrote about. My question is, where on the dial are we supposed to catch neo-soul at all? "KSoul" DSOC-FM (94.5) caters to the Al Green crowd, but what about Amy Winehouse or Joss Stone? I know, I know. There are other means besides the radio to hear these women. But I practically live in my car, the radio's on ... am I ever going to hear them? Is there some Amy airplay I don't know about?

Is soul losing its color or just letting in some light? Check out Mario's look at the phenomenon of white soul-singing women — Amy, Joss, even older acts like Dusty Springfield and Annie Lennox — and our slideshow of some the women from his story.

(AP photo: Amy Winehouse at the Rock in Rio music fest near Madrid on July 4)

Somebody (I think it's Jeff Liles) has created this very random Dallas Music History page on Myspace. It's got a fun-to-watch news report video from the Sex Pistols' gig at Longhorn Ballroom. And it's just got this stream-of-consciousness kind of list of names of anybody and everybody who's ever been associated with the Dallas music scene. It's a true genre-buster, too: The list includes current and dearly-departed musicians from jazz pianist Big Al Dupree to Pantera guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott.

Check out the review from last' nights show here, video of screaming fans before the show here and comments from last night's concert-goers here.

Get an early look at photos of acts coming to Dallas on Thursday with the 15th annual Vans Warped Tour. Check the site tomorrow (or the blog; I'll probably have it here, too) for Mike's Vans Warped roundup story + photos.

(Courtesy photo: Horrorpops)

For no good reason other than to make us laugh, Chris McNary over on the DallasNews.com desk sent us GuideLive.com gals this Youtube of Hear 'n Aid, the "We Are the World" of metaldom, headed by Ronnie James Dio. I almost suffocated from all the hair. Enjoy.

In his latest column, Mario laments the dying of vinyl — and cassette tapes and CDs, for that matter. Do you buy music from stores anymore, or do you exclusively download? Do you have strong feelings either way? Share your favorite album or CD cover art if you have one, too.

(Photo: coverbrowser.com. You can't experience cover art like this when you download, now, can you?)

I recently returned from a trip to London, where music awaits you at every corner -- and in the Underground too. My wife and I found ourselves one night in Covent Garden, and even though it was raining, we heard the most amazing voice ... complemented by terrific guitar playing. It turned out to be a remarkable tenor named Terry St. Clair. I struck up a conversation with Terry and have since e-mailed him. You too can listen to his tunes, on his My Space page. It turns out I'm not the only American who has gone to England and discovered Terry, in the same way we were given the gift of our favorite movie of 2007, Once, which carries its own UK flair. Rice University student Dustin Bachrach recently posted a photograph of Terry on his Web site (thanks much for the photo, Dustin), and -- what do you know? -- even American cinema has discovered Terry.

Photo of Terry St. Clair courtesy of Dustin Bachrach

Dawn and another editor up here, Jerry Bokamper (aka "Mr. Dallas"), were just talking about how the increasingly salacious details from the trial are making it hard for the media to describe things without offending readers more than necessary. At any rate, click down below to see journalism's latest attempt. Also check out Lorrie's post about the matter here.

Also, are you a fan of the Boondocks comic strip? There's an episode of the cartoon version about the R. Kelly trial, with over-the-top commentary on hip-hop/pop culture and race. (If you're not familiar, this contains raw language, depictions).

(Photo: AP)

Check out a video slideshow of pictures from Radiohead's sold-out Dallas concert as well as comments about the show from DMN pop music critic Thor Christensen. Read his review of the show here and see what he has to say about the playlist here.

Hunter Hauk, local music guru over at Quick, has added some digital extras to this week's Liner Notes column. Read his latest dish here.

Yep, Alicia is holding a contest to find a new backup vocalist, who will join the singer/politico on her worldwide Lexus Presents Alicia Keys As I Am tour. Interested? Get on Alicia's Myspace page and submit a 30 second or longer video of yourself singing an original song acapella. Deadline is May 5. Requirements include being female and between the ages of 21 and 30. Click below for more info.

Yep, get the first single from Viva La Vida for free from the band's Web site. But hurry; the offer only lasts a week, starting tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. More here.

I don't like big pink elephants sitting in the middle of a hot topic. This story about rappers performing for youths and giving their testimonies on the syndicated radio show The Spirit of Hip-Hop exposes the humongous rosy pachyderm that always accompanies the topic of mainstream hip-hop and religion: How can you rap about b*tches and hoes, then turn around and tell kids that God is real in your life?

It reminds me how amazed I get sometimes when listening to "K104" KKDA-FM (104.5). It has the pastor of Friendship West Baptist Church on most mornings to give a spiritual, "inspirational vitamin" about the love of God, living right and becoming a better person. Then what follows? Often a song celebrating strip clubs, drunkenness, violence or the degradation of women. No transition, no sense of irony and no acknowledgement of the very obvious hypocrisy served up.

CNN International poses the same question to Sprit of Hip-Hop host Corey Condrey in this video.

• BMI's 2008 Christian Music Awards
Ed Cash won songwriter of the year and his "Made to Worship" composition was named song of the year at the awards show in Nashville on Saturday. Read more about it here.

• Gospel Music Channel takes off
It's now TV's fastest-growing cable network. Even bigger for GMC, it will carry live coverage of the 39th annual Dove Awards on Wednesday. Read more here.

• Third Day, Switchfoot join Live Nation for Music Builds Tour
The 23-city U.S. tour, which also features Robert Randolph & the Family Band and Jars of Clay, will benefit Habitat for Humanity. It'll stop in Dallas at Superpages.com Center Oct. 2. More here and here.

(Wikipedia.org)

A synopsis: "The project revolves around two male dancers on the show who get into 'a lot of good stuff and some bad stuff as well,' said Cornelius, who will serve as a producer. It features 'lots of music, lots of comedy,' as well as 'a little bit of violence.' He also promised it would be 'more than slightly sensual.'"

Check out a video slideshow of Bruce Springsteen's concert on Sunday with commentary from pop music critic Thor Christensen, in addition to Thor's review of the concert from Monday. Read comments about the show by fans at my other Bruce Springsteen post below.

• Because most of us can only experience SXSW vicariously, local act Big Red Rooster members (get to know them via video above) will blog here about their random and hopefully deleterious experiences down in Austin. Check back for that around, oh, sometime this evening.
• Our Spanish-language publication, Al Día, already has a story here about Aterciopelados, Molotov and other alternative Latin music acts at the festival.
• Stuff: SXSW vets around the office say our critics and other media types probably spent most of today standing in lines for credentials and other official kit. Thor reviews Van Morrison tonight; Mike will have a show picked out to review by tonight, too. We'll be snapping mad pics of bands, the scene, the hordes. Oh, and Mike will paint us a picture of what it's like to be a SXSW band roadie after following around local act the New Frontiers. Stay tuned.

• All SXSW coverage

Check out the concert webcast right now:

• OPERATION MYSPACE CONCERT LIVE

It's a three-hour concert that started at 1 p.m. our time, streaming in high-def flash from Kuwait, in front of what appears to be thousands of U.S. military. There's also a number where you can leave messages for the troops while you're watching.

Performers: Disturbed, Jessica Simpson, Pussycat Dolls, Filter, Z-Trip, Metal Sanaz. It's hosted by Carlos Mencia.

I posted this earlier on the Screening Room blog, but I figured I'd drop it over here as well since it has such a strong music tie.

AUSTIN -- This morning I had the chance to interview one of my musical idols, Daniel Lanois. Never heard of him? Odds are you are familiar with his work: He, along with Brian Eno, produced many of U2's albums, including The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby and All That You Can't Leave Behind. And he's also produced acclaimed albums by Willie Nelson (Teatro) and Bob Dylan (Time Out of Mind).

When he sat for our interview, he looked as rock and roll as one can get, wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket, dark shades and a black cap. And as we talked, he fiddled with an acoustic guitar, which he referred to as his security blanket.

Willie on Wednesday night (Randy Eli Grothe / DMN)

• Video
• Review
• Tonight's show info

The singer and actress is launching a social networking site through Kraft Foods aimed at women, where she and three other personalities issue challenges to members and offer ideas for cocktail parties, personal style and other fun stuff. Upumpitup's decidedly un-Mypsace but still, eh, cute.

Junior high kids visited the Old Red Museum downtown recently to learn local angles of their Black History Month education, which included area blues legends and the very African American history of Deep Ellum. They learned about Jim Crow in Dallas, which made Deep Ellum necessary to begin with, and participated in excercises like writing their own blues songs.

• Video

I admit I cracked up watching the white private school students struggle with their blues ditties like it was the music of ancient Greece. But hey, I'd rather see them struggle while learning than see the rich blues history up the street suffer a Greek fate.

Tapes n' Tapes' people sent out an email today saying that SXSW is one of the band's tour stops, too.

If you're not familiar with this annual interactive, film and music conference and festival, check the site's about page and our blog posts from last year, housed on the original, pre-Playlist mothership of all GuideLive.com blogs, Over the Top.

Confirmed acts for the fest so far include R.E.M., My Morning Jacket, Dolly Parton, David Banner, Bun B, Sia, Black Keys and tons more. Lou Reed will be the music conference's keynote speaker.

Stay tuned.

Ky-Mani Marley (from his myspace)

Listen to the music of a few Marley spawn. My picks are Stephen and Damian:

More Marley trivia you may or may not know: Lauryn Hill has five kids with former U of Miami linebacker Rohan Marley.

Hello, this could compete for Most Random Discovery of Talent for the century. Filipino singer-songwriter Arnel Pineda uploaded performances of his band, the Zoo, onto YouTube. Meanwhile, Journey guitarist Neal Schon was trolling the internet in search for a lead singer and found Arnel's dead-on cover of "Faithfully." The rest, as they say ....

The "Faithfully" cover may have been what wowed Neal Schon, but Arnel's "Don't Stop Believing" is unbelievable.

• Arnel's wiki entry
• Story

To tha beat, y'all (fortunecity.com)

That got me to wondering about where else in the vast dub-dub-dub is good listening. Do you, fellow blog user (those of you who listen to computer radio, anyway), have a favorite? What sites do you use?

With Radiohead's online self-release of its new studio material, In Rainbows (one word: wow), and Madonna's abandonment of her traditional music label for a multi-album, multi-concert-tour, multi-merch, multi-baby-adoption (er, wait: I'm doublechecking ... OK, nix that last part) deal with Live Nation, the music biz continues its chaotic reformation.

I think of it differently. In my mind, this is the first time in recorded music history that the artists themselves have had a shot at defining, en masse, how their product is presented and offered for mass consumption. Think about it ...

Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hutz (Jackie Canchola)

• Listen: Hear the band of gypunkers
• Read: Mike's story about them


Tell me what you think below.

Billboard.com reports that seminal British punk band the Sex Pistols are finally acqiescing to the times and allowing Never Mind the Bullocks ... Here's the Sex Pistols to be available on iTunes beginning today.

Not that this is truly news. The band's surviving members (minus Sid Vicious, of course) re-recorded "Anarchy in the U.K." and "Pretty Vacant" for use in the upcoming Activision video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (the original masters were lost in a London fire many years ago), so it's not like the old farts had no clue what the internet was. It does -- especially cantankerous L.A. radio host John Lydon, known to most as Johnny Rotten -- and it's savvy enough to know how to market itself as critical cogs in rock history's annals.

But that move just isn't, well, punk. This is even less so: the reunited band will perform on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno on Oct. 30 and on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson (the Scottish host is himself a former punk rocker) on Halloween, six days after performing at a private Roxy show sponsored by Mr. Lydon's radio station, Activision and upstart cell-phone company Helio on Oct. 25. Never mind the bullocks, here's the greenbacks!

Robert Plant, left, and guitarist Jimmy Page (AP)

TELL US: What Zeppelin songs, if any, will you add to the ol' iPod? Comment below.

• Read about the band's 21st century entrance here
• Led Zeppelin's wiki entry
• Hear a little Led on allmusic.com (type the band's name into the search bar)

It's no secret that Blackout is being blackballed by some. Image-conscious radio is showing neither love nor air time to Britney Spears and her upcoming CD's hit, "Gimme More." (Yes, it's a hit: it's No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart almost solely due to digital downloads).

Yet there's a second victim: J.Lo. "Do it Well," the first single off of Jennifer Lopez's three-day-old English-language album Brave, is also being shunned by dance and Top 40 radio.

This raises a couple of issues for me. First, this is proof that radio can break and maintain a major music artist but can't kill one, at least in the short term (and especially if said artist has a reputation beyond that of just a musician). I mean, sheesh; Bruce Springsteen's Magic sold 335,000 copies in its first week with no airplay except on satellite radio, and I bet it goes platinum by early 2008 if not before. Second, radio may be at least as fickle, bloated and holier-than-thou as the major labels are. If people want to hear a song that's obviously doing at least decently -- for whatever reason and through whatever medium -- wouldn't they want to play it? Aren't they missing out on potential listeners (and, therefore, ratings points and ad revenue)?

Don't get me wrong: "Gimme More" is a horrible track, and though I haven't heard J.Lo's single yet, I'm betting that it's humdrum. But a critical part of a working capitalist economic model, even in the digital age, is giving people what they want, and radio appears to not be doing that. At least this week.

The Nov. 6 issue of PC World magazine includes its top 200 Web sites, and there are a few nifty ones of the music sort I'd never visitied before.

The mag splits up its list into 100 under-the-radar/undiscovered sites and 100 "classic" sites. On the classics list, PC groups music, movies and TV into the same category, but only two music sites made that list: allmusic.com (my personal favorite resource as music editor of GL.com) and pitchforkmedia.com, a hip music news and reviews site.

But a few on the under-the-radar list caught my eye:

• imeem.com — A Myspace-ish site, sans the sexual predators.
• musicovery.com — A music player that tailors the tunes to your particular mood at any given moment.
• singshot.com — Ok, I'm confused on this one. The magazine said the site's called singshot, but you type that in and thesimsonstage.ea.com comes up instead. I love the Sims, but I can't quite figure out this site. It seems to be a place you can post yourself singing karaoke, but ... not. Can someone clue me in?
• slacker.com — Attractive, free, easy-to-use online radio. Just click the genre you want to hear and press play.

What are your favorite music sites? Let us know. (Mike and Mario sometimes break into spontaneous dance around the office to tunes from this site ).

(Cartoon Network)

It started with Alvin and the Chipmunks waaay back in the late 1950s. It reached its peak with Gorillaz just a couple of years ago. But in this increasingly digital age, what's the future of the virtual band?

Pretty bright, it appears. The newest animated music act, Dethklok from Adult Swim's year-old animated black-comedy series, Metalocalypse, represents a fringe-frayed subgenre compared to the funk- and dub-rubbed electronic dance of the Grammy-winning Gorillaz (which, by the way, hasn't won as many as Alvin and co., whose creator, Ross Bagdasarian, won two in 1959 for sound engineering). But Dethklok's debut, The Dethalbum, sold 34,000 units in the U.S. last week and debuted at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 album chart today, making it one of the highest-charting death metal album ever in America.

That's right: a fake band is apparently more popular than most of the real ones of its ilk here (not that many death metal bands aren't already caricatures in many respects already, heh). But here's the scary part: there will be a Dethklok live tour, supposedly featuring Metalocalypse co-creator (and guitar shredder; he shows axe wielders everywhere how to play Metalocalypse's theme song here) Brendon Small and former Death/Dark Angel drummer (and Dallas native) Gene Hoglan. At least Gorillaz have given the duo some kooky ideas in that respect.

Tony Romo and Kelly, having some Salvation Army fun. (AP)

Burleson native and original Idol Kelly Clarkson is coming home for Thanksgiving to sing at halftime during the Cowboys home game. Click on the audio and find out what she was responding to when she replied, "Honey, they don't make those for big booties!" We've also got video that shows her kicking off the Salvation Army's Red Kettle campaign and being cool to some kiddos.

Audio interview
Kick-off video

Jacknife Lee, the producer and frequent U2 collaborator, has a cool new Web site, appropriately enough titled jacknifelee.com. On it, he has a slew of remixes of songs from U2, Radiohead, Missy Elliot, Snow Patrol, Busta Rhymes and so on. So for those of you who like to hear a favorite artist totally deconstructed and put back together again, head over there and take a listen. One word of warning: Jack makes you hunt for the mix page, but if you click on the fifth circle from the left on the main page you should find what you seek.

(CNET.com)

My mp3 player is invaluable to me while I work out, but I really need a new one. My Samsung Nexus 50 with XM capabilities has served me well over the past year and a half. But it's a piece of technology that works better on paper than in reality — the XM only functions when the player's sitting in its craddle, so away from home, it's just a run-of-the-mill player. Recommendations? I'm looking for something workout-friendly. Just please, no iPhone ($); I work at a newspaper. And if you reccommend a particular iPod, please say why. I've resisted the i-cult up to now, but I'm willing to sip the Kool-Aid with an effective argument.

At Palladium Ballroom in April (Jason Janik / Special to DMN)

Some random person pretending to be Chris Cornell online hasn't exactly scored a friendship with the real deal. The November issue of Revolver reports in its "Blabbermouth.net Scoop of the Month" that the former frontman for Audioslave and Soundgarden was pretty unhappy with faux-Chris' online trickery and has said so via his myspace page. Support Chris (the real one) Oct. 30 at House of Blues when he comes through town to promo his new solo album, Carry On. His April show at Palladium Ballroom sold out.

• Show info
• Chris' web site